Game Girls (8 page)

'Is Aaron coming with them?' Fern has
flushed pink, the words rushing out of her.
Alix can see she's following a different agenda.
Good. 'No. Just Tom and Dale.'

Fern's face takes on an odd expression, and
Alix can't decide if she's disappointed or
relieved. 'I couldn't have been there anyway –
I've got English Wednesday afternoon. I'm not
allowed to miss it.'

'Oh. Shame.'

Courtney is staring at Alix.

Alix meets the look. 'It could mean
REALLY good money,' she says.

* * *

F
ERN works in the old boathouse, rolling
out slabs of clay. Today, in college, they did
figure drawings, and now she wants to make
figures of her own. She's got an idea that won't
go away – strange images in her head. In these
images there are people struggling through
slime. They are not quite human. She sees them
as mud dwellers, lost in a world that lies
trapped beneath the undertow.

She keeps the door open to give herself the
best light, although it is a grey afternoon.
Misted rain fuzzes up the boats and the river.
The days are shrinking now, so even though it's
still unseasonably warm, it gets dark early. The
electrics don't work – last year's floods ruined
them – and their insurance didn't cover the
outbuildings.

Dad says – used to say – that he'd get the
wiring sorted and safe again, but it won't
happen now.

She takes the first slabs, rolling them into legs
and torso. It's going to be a crouching figure,
with clumsy slab hands covering the head.

Always be aware of danger.

Beware, beware, the undertow.

Her hands smooth the clay tenderly, the
way a mother strokes a child. She is working
through touch and instinct now, hardly
needing the feeble light. She loves to work like
this, feeling her way to the heart of what she's
doing. She never uses wheels, or coils, or any
of the normal potter's tools.

And when she's working properly, when it's
all flowing, everything else just falls away.
Nothing matters – except getting it right.

Maybe the undertow is a kind of angered
God. Maybe He wants to punish people for
hurting the weather and changing the ways the
currents flow, so he drags poor souls down
through the dark sucking mud. Maybe the
dragged-down souls dream about the world
above the river. The world above the river is
their vision of heaven.

Outside, a cormorant shrieks across the
darkness.

The rain grows heavier, tinning down onto
the roof.

She dips her hands in a bowl of cold water,
sluicing off the excess clay, and then turns back
to the workbench to roll slabs for the head.

'Fern, sweetheart – how are you doing?'

Fern almost screams as she jolts round,
startled and disorientated, the way she always
is when people appear suddenly when she's lost
in her work. Mum is by the door, pulling at the
front of a tired grey cardigan, wrapping herself
into it. Her hair is drizzled with rain.

Fern takes a breath. 'I'm doing OK.'

Mum comes closer and squints at the
slabbed body parts. 'It's . . . it's very different.
Not like the things you usually do.'

Fern feels a scraping of irritation. 'I can't get
the face right,' she mutters.

Mum tilts her head, stepping back to try
and gain a longer view. 'It's so gloomy in here
– it must be hard to work in all these shadows.'

The irritation scratches through Fern again.
Without answering she twists a handful of
fresh clay from the bag on the bench and
begins to roll it very thin, twizzling and
squeezing it between her fingers.

'What's that going to be?'

'It's hair – but sort of seaweedy.' Fern
doesn't look up. 'I want it to look all matted
and ugly.' There is a silence, and Fern knows
Mum is thinking about mermaids and A star
grades and the sorts of things guests might like
to buy for Christmas.

'I really came down to tell you it's dinner
time,' says Mum. 'Dad's got a doctor's appointment
this evening, so I need to get through
everything early. And you shouldn't really be out
here now it's late. Anyone could be walking past
on the path. It's not safe.'

Fern does look up now, and is suddenly
ashamed. Even in the shadows she can see that
there are folds beside Mum's mouth and her
eyes are hooded; the face of someone much
older. 'I'll just finish this bit, and then I'll be in.
Don't worry about the tidying up after dinner
though – I'll sort it out.'

'You're a sweetheart. My little star.' Mum
hugs Fern, kissing her hair. 'Five more
minutes,' she says. 'Otherwise I'll be in here
nagging at you again.' She walks back outside
and away.

Fern wets the single strand of seaweedy hair,
and moulds it to the slabbed head. Then she
covers the whole figure with a moistened cloth
before swishing her hands round in the water.
She wipes them dry on her jeans.

A sweetheart.

A little star.

She wishes Mum would stop calling her
things like that.

She wishes Mum could see she's growing up.

* * *

Alix opens the door and she doesn't think she's
going to be able to do it. The Dale and Tom of
last weekend have become hazy and vague. She
has built new ones in her head instead. She has
had conversations with the new Dale and Tom,
told jokes, flirted and set tiny traps hidden
behind giggled questions. They always answer
perfectly, laughing in the right places, saying
exactly what she needs them to say.

These two are real, and she had forgotten
about them being spunk hunks. Why would
gorgeous spunk hunks want to pay?

'Come in.' She stands back, wondering now if
she just looks too obvious in the short red skirt
and lacy black top. She is a fake. Two dimensional.
They probably won't even fancy her.

'You look good.' Dale hugs her. If he's
embarrassed about last Saturday, it doesn't show.

'Amazing.' Tom is standing behind him,
nodding.

She meets his eye over Dale's shoulder and
remembers the gold flecks and the to-die-for
smile. This whole idea is going to explode in
her face. She doesn't have to go through with
it. 'You – you remembered how to get here
OK?' Stupid stupid question.

'How could I forget?' Dale squeezes her
shoulder then hugs her again.

Tom is still doing the smile.

These are nice guys. Her brother's mates.
With not too much work, either one of them
could end up as her boyfriend for a while. Why
doesn't she just settle for some nice meals and
clubs and weekends away in Sussex?

'Your phone's all ready.' Stupid stupid.
Again. She's made it sound as if she's washed it
and polished it all ready for collection. 'Do –
d'you want a drink?'

'Sure.'

'Sounds good.'

They are in control and her grip grows
looser with every passing second. She's never
going to be able to see this through. 'I've got a
mate here. Courtney. You might remember her
from Saturday?' It sounds false, rehearsed.
Which it is.

Dale and Tom glance at each other. She sees
questions in the glance, as if they are passing
thoughts telepathically. Is her friend there to
protect her? Or is she offering something even
more exciting than Saturday night? The glance
hardens the mood in her. They are, it seems,
here for something. Not just nice guys. Not
completely.

Courtney comes down the stairs. Her face is
masked with a creamy pale foundation, her eyes
ringed in dark liner. She is dressed in black. Of
course.

'Courtney. My mate.'

'Hi.'

'Good to meet you.'

Dale and Tom smile at Courtney and then
pass the look to each other again. Which one
do you want?

Alix wonders, suddenly, if they always work
as a team. The idea seems to slide in under her
skin. If this is true, she has been easy prey.

'Come on.' Her smile is bolder now as she
leads them through to the kitchen. 'Beers for the
boys.' She pulls two bottles from the fridge. She
and Courtney have already washed their nerves
with vodka but the effect, which gave her a rush
of courage twenty minutes ago, seems to have
evaporated. 'I think I'll do a Breezer,' she says
brightly to Courtney. 'You want one?'

'OK.' Courtney shrugs. She seems tense and
won't meet Alix's eye.

Alix gets the bottle opener and flicks off the
lids. The second one pings out of control,
bouncing down onto the floor. Dale bends to get
it. Alix feels as if her legs are blushing. Is he
staring up her skirt? 'Let's go through to the front
room. I'll find some music.'

With the CD started up, her awkwardness
returns. Dale and Tom sit either end of the
sofa, legs stretched, filling all the space. Alix
has seen this pose before. Guys in charge. Her
own legs are crossed but she doesn't have much
choice, not with the shortness of her skirt. She
tugs at it with one hand. It isn't her and she
hates it. She will never dress like this again.

Courtney, her legs tucked underneath her, is
on the floor by the window, staring across at
the opposite wall. She is clearly avoiding
making eye contact with everyone.

Alix has set candles burning but she left the
curtains open – she didn't want to look
too
up
for it – and the wispy flames are almost
invisible in the day-bright room. The guys are
bound to see through her naïve scene setting.
They are probably laughing. Telepathically.

'So – you had a good birthday?' Tom lifts
his beer to his lips.

Alix can't tell if the question is loaded or not.
Does he mean the day itself – or the part he
played in it? She needs to sound encouraging, to
lace her answer with innuendo. 'Yes, fantastic.
Some things went much better than I'd
expected. Thanks.'

The music is the Blades. Aaron's CD. Alix bets
Aaron doesn't know these two are here. Shared
secrets.

Courtney is still staring straight ahead.
There is a candle behind her, on the window
ledge. Its nervous light tips the edges of her
spiked-up hair, giving her the look of a girl in a
dark fantasy, touched with powers. Alix
wonders whether dark power is a seductive
force for guys.

Alix drinks more, and tries to relax into the
music. This whole moment feels unreal now,
like a badly acted scene in a play.

Dale glances at Alix, then back at Tom. 'We
can't stay too long. We've got a couple of
things to do before we head back.'

Tom nods, swills his bottle, checking the
contents. 'Sure. I'm nearly done on this.'

Alix hears the game behind the words. Of
course they can stay. Why else would they have
come? But they've got the dice, and they keep
rolling out sixes.

She should just let them go. Forget the whole
insane rubbish idea. But when she thinks of this,
a flatness seems to level across her, like arriving
at the fairground to find all the rides have
packed away. She uncrosses her legs, sits with
her knees pressed together, and leans forward
with a smile. 'I've got more beer,' she says.

'Yeah, sure.'

'Why not.'

Both still casual. Playing her. But not for
long. Soon she's going to start rolling sixes on
her own dice. She gets up and goes into the
kitchen, opens four new bottles, then carries
the drinks back in. 'The sun's in my eyes,' she
announces. 'Anyone mind if I close the
curtains?' She moves a candle to over by the
CD player, and then shuts out the day. The
atmosphere in the room seems to thicken. As if
it is waiting. She smiles round at everyone, and
then sits on the floor beside Dale.

Courtney jolts a glance at them both. She
starts on her new Breezer and shoots a tight,
strained smile across to Tom.

Tom gets up. 'I'll try a new CD. I'm sick of
hearing this.' It takes him ages. 'This tuning.'
He shakes his head. 'It needs sorting.' The
music crackles up, then fades. Crackles and
fades. He is down on his knees, his shadow in
the flickering light grown huge, half-filling the
room. A sultry instrumental sound seeps out.
Lulling. Luring.

Alix can tell he has chosen this carefully. It
is music for moonlight. Music for lovers.

He doesn't come back to the sofa. He goes to
the window and sits on the floor next to
Courtney.

Alix feels Dale's hand rest on her shoulder,
and her insides knot up. This is a crucial point.
She has to get her timing right.

Leaning against him, she turns slightly. 'The
thing is, Courtney's here for a reason. We've
been looking forward to it. To seeing you –
I've told her what good company you both
are.'

Dale's hand is massaging her shoulder now,
a confident movement, the touch of someone
who is sure he isn't going to be brushed away.

Alix turns to look at Tom. 'We wanted you to
have a fantastic time with us. Me and Courtney.
We thought we'd – you know – help you a bit. If
you'd help us.'

Tom's gold-flecked eyes rest on Dale's hand
for a moment, then rise up to meet Alix's.
'What sort of help do you want?'

She shifts sideways slightly, manoeuvring
herself away from Dale's easy reach.

Courtney shifts too, her back now straight
and rigid against the wall.

'We're – we're trying to run a business.
We're having a bit of a cash crisis and we're
offering a service . . . '

Alix forces herself to stay looking at Tom.
She has to make it look like she knows what
she wants. She sees him raise his eyebrows. Sees
him send a thought to Dale.

'How much . . . ' asks Dale's voice from
behind her. 'How much do you want for
your . . . service?'

She smiles then, and tries not to punch the
air. It's going to be easy after all.

* * *

F
ERN is dizzy from staring at the dancing
words. She has the yellow sheet to lay over
them which is supposed to pin them down but
they still shift and flicker; taunting black
squiggles that she battles to understand.

The concentration has made her eyes ache.

She looks up, blinking out of the English
room window and across the sports fields.
Autumn is pushing in properly now, the trees
that edge the grounds leafed in brown and
russet and gold. She wishes she was outside.

'How goes it, Fern?' Rob Perry is standing
beside her.

'I, uh – OK.'

'You're not using your acetate?'

'No.' She doesn't try to explain. She gave up
explaining things a long time ago. She remembers
how, when she was younger, she thought reading
was this hard for everybody. She didn't realise
that for most people letters stayed fixed on the
page and they could follow them from left to
right – and that the squiggles told them
something that made sense. Or is it right to left?
She gets muddled with that too sometimes.

Rob Perry bends down, sliding her
worksheet round for a better view.

While he checks it through, she stares at his
ear. There is a small gold stud pinched into the
lobe. She likes Rob Perry. He never fusses too
much. He's nice looking too. Alix even said
once it would be all right to be a 'special' if it
meant you got Rob Perry helping you out.

'It's pretty good.' Rob Perry slides the
worksheet back to her, straightens up, and
smiles. 'Just keep going. Make sure you check
through for punctuation.'

Fern keeps going. She checks for punctuation,
even though checking for punctuation is
a guessing game.

Rob Perry says she shouldn't try to
understand it – she should just learn the rules
and keep on doing them until they stick. She
tries to do that. She can see it makes sense.
Except, even though she's learnt the rules, the
writing shifts and shakes and won't stay still
long enough for her to be sure she's done it right.

It is like that now, staring down at her sheet,
the words trembling up at her.

The only writing she's ever really coped with
is short texted messages, or sometimes internet
chat rooms. No one seems to care about rules
and punctuation then.

She wonders, suddenly, if Khaki Steve had
guessed she was stupid from her spelling.
Maybe he picked her out carefully.

'OK, everybody.' Rob Perry is cleaning the
whiteboard, pushing papers into a baggy
brown briefcase and checking his watch as he
stands at the front of the room. 'We'll wind up
for today. See you again on Friday.'

Wind up for today.

Fern thinks of herself as a kind of clock,
internal hands ticking away her seconds and
minutes and hours. Everyone could be a clock,
she decides. Babies must be no later than one
o'clock. Students her age must be around four
in the afternoon – about now, in fact. Old, old
people are gone eleven. But then, she thinks
again, it doesn't quite work. Some people run
on too fast. Some people's lives just don't end
when they should. She doesn't want to think
about what time Dad might be telling.

Outside the English room she makes her
way through the corridors. They are clogged
with students. Books, bags and chatter.

'Oh my God – guess who sat next to
me
in
history?'

'You getting the bus, Janie?'

'Me and Karl have got tickets for
The
Breakdown
tonight.'

Everyone is with someone. Arms linked,
hands held, pressed together in groups.

Fern doesn't see Alix or Courtney, and out
in the car park there is no sign of Alix's Mini.

And then she remembers they were doing
something – meeting up with Aaron's friends to
give one of them back his mobile.

She feels a graze of pain as she thinks about
Aaron.

Alix and Courtney will probably end up
going out with those two friends. They can't be
coming back all this way just for a mobile
phone, and anyway Alix could have posted it if
it was really that important. If Alix gets
together with someone, Fern is certain she
won't be asking her to go shopping, or inviting
her round to share the dregs of her chilli, anymore.

The thought of this empties her out.

She'd loved Sunday, round Alix's, just
chatting with Alix and Courtney. She'd felt
part of it. Part of them. She had let herself
believe that she might have regular friends to
go and see, but she thinks now that of course it
won't work out like that.

She trails on home, crossing the road to the
side where the houses are, taking herself away
from the couples and threesomes and small
gangs.

The afternoon is restless, a gruffling wind
unsettling the leaves and litter that have piled
in the gutter. She stops to pick up a conker, the
spiked green case split and cracked. Cradled in
its soft white bed, the chestnut brown is like an
exposed heart. It can be scratched or kicked or
bounced. Or crushed. She edges it out with her
finger, nestling it in her hand.

Rounding the road that forks off to the river
path, she sees someone hurrying ahead of her.
Courtney. She is walking determinedly, too far
away to catch up. Perhaps Aaron's friends'
changed his mind about collecting his mobile?
Or perhaps Alix and Courtney were stood up?

And then it strikes Fern that maybe Alix is
at home, alone.

She could go round and see. It's a chance to
be like everyone else – a chance to be with
someone.

Dropping the conker down into the gutter
Fern turns, heading left – or is it right? – to
Alix's.

* * *

Courtney doesn't go home.

Instead, she heads out along the main road,
walking quickly.

School is out.

Small clusters of pupils in Long Cove High
blazers mill about. Lighting cigarettes.
Chewing gum. Laughing too loudly.

She thinks that she used to be like that.
Although she never really did the laughing.

Her hair is still slightly damp because she
showered at Alix's. Showered and showered and
showered. Showered so much that in the end Alix
came knocking on the door checking she was all
right.

Her walking takes her away from the
pupils, past the river path that leads round to
Fern's house, left at the church and then down
the hill into the country park.

She hadn't known she was headed here.

She hasn't been down here for a long time.

The entrance to the park has a small kissing
gate and she weaves through it, stepping out
onto the moss-soft track that leads down to the
lake.

There is birdsong everywhere, and she feels
she is listening to the sound for the first time
ever. It is not beautiful. It is harsh and sharp
and angry. Maybe the birds are really
screaming. She thinks how terrible it must be to
scream and scream until your lungs want to
burst, and to have people say, 'Oh, what a
beautiful song.'

She walks faster.

Down by the lake there is a small girl,
standing with her mum, throwing bread for
the ducks. Courtney stops behind them, even
though she knows it is a weird thing to do –
stopping and watching people. But she wants
suddenly to link herself in with them. Be part
of the safety of this little girl and her mum,
who have time to spend standing and smiling
at a squabble of ducks.

'Look, Mummy – that one there – the
brown one. He hasn't had any bread yet.'

'That's a lady duck. The man ones are the
ones with all the pretty colours.'

'Why?'

'I'm not sure, darling. Maybe it's because
the mummies have to hide in the reeds when
they're nesting on their eggs.' The mum has
endless patience in her voice. Stay near me. I
will know everything for you. No one will hurt
you when you're near to me.

Courtney feels a bitter tang in her mouth
and realises she has been biting her bottom lip.
She keeps watching. More ducks come
steaming round from behind the tiny island,
behind them long lines of ripples crisscross
each other in the dimpled water.

The little girl scrabbles in her bag of bread,
giggling.

Courtney watches her and not the ducks, and
tries to remember what it was like to be that
small, to stand on this very spot, her own hand
in the bag of bread. She's done it – she knows
she's done it – because there are photos at home.
Her and Mum, before the boys came along. But
it's just photographs. She can't remember the
real her standing here. She can't remember the
real her doing anything that long ago.

'Do you want some?'

Courtney is startled by the question,
realising the girl has turned and is handing out
a crust to her. She wants to say no but the girl
has wide grey eyes which are fixed gravely on
her as if this is something that matters.

'Thanks.'

She takes the bread and walks forward to the
edge of the water. It is rippled but clear, bowing
trees nodding their branches wisely from their
upside-down reflections. We know. We know. A
fish splashes near, peach-pale and ghost-like
under the surface.

'You just throw it,' says the girl, 'like this.'
She hurls her breaded confetti in an arc, the
ducks bleating madly, racing each other to get
to it first.

Courtney throws her own arc of broken
crust.

'See, it's easy.' The tone of the girl's voice
shows she has taken charge. 'The brown ducks
are the ladies but I like the boy ones best.
They're prettier.'

Courtney catches the mum's eyes for the
first time, and the mum smiles at her. 'I know
you,' she says. 'You work in Easi Shop.'

Courtney nods and smiles back. She understands
the statement. The mum is confirming
that it's safe for her grave-eyed little girl to talk
to Courtney because Courtney isn't a stranger.
She's already been recognised and vetted. She
works in Easi Shop. She must be all right.

Courtney hurls the next handful of bread
further. A few ducks make the half-hearted
effort to swim for it, but most of them lose
interest. The little girl's offerings are easiest.

She empties the bag out upside down, the
last soft flakes snowing down onto the pond.

Then she takes Courtney's hand, her small
warm fingers closing trustingly around
Courtney's.

Courtney glances at the mum again.

The mum is still smiling.

Courtney wonders what she'd do if she told
her that, just under an hour ago, she had a
stranger's cock in her mouth. For money.

* * *

Alix is glowing – not at all like someone who
has just been stood up. 'Did you have a good
time? With Aaron's friends?'

'Sort of. You know.' Alix shrugs and throws
Fern a bag of crisps from the kitchen cupboard.
'More leftovers. We can have a drink as well.'

Fern can't link the glow with the shrug, and
then decides it's because Alix is trying to do the
'not too keen' thing. She watches her hook two
Breezers from the fridge, twisting open the lids
with a bottle opener.

Fern wonders when Alix is going to tell her
that she's going to see him again. Her and
Courtney. She sees them laughing, linking
arms, all four of them out in pubs or clubs or
all the places where Fern never really fits.

They sit at the table in the living room. It's
untidy. Beer cans. An empty Breezer bottle. Half-burned
candles. For some reason the curtains are
closed.

'Can I ask you a question, Fern?'

'Anything.' Fern splits open the crisps and
puts one in her mouth but doesn't swallow it.
Crunching noises are embarrassing, and bad
manners. She'll have to let it get soft before she
can eat it properly.

'I wanted to ask you – and don't get upset
with me – have you ever had a boyfriend?' Alix
crunches into her own crisps.

Fern sucks the crisp. Chews it nervously.
Swallows at last. 'Not properly.' She hates
having to say it. There have been a few groping
moments with a boy who stayed at
River's
View
with his grandparents last year, and a
date to meet someone from school in the
country park when she was fifteen. The date
didn't turn up and she sat on the bench
watching the ducks in the lake, and pretended
it didn't matter.

'So . . . does that mean you're still a virgin?'

The question feels like a kind of punch – even
coming from Alix. The familiar rush of heat
burns up into her face, and she doesn't answer.

'I just wondered because – I – well, I think I
know what might be the problem.' Alix's voice
is very gentle now, and her eyes have softened.

Fern tries not to think about Aaron. 'What
problem?'

'Why you haven't had a boyfriend. It's
because you look too scared all the time. Too
worried. Like a deer with a firework up its
backside.'

Fern forces out a laugh she doesn't feel. She
can picture this deer – a cartoon image –
leaping about with sparks fizzing out of its rear
end. Is all this something to do with Aaron?
Has he told Alix she was pathetic?

'I could help you.' Alix swigs at her Breezer,
and digs for more crisps. 'I could get you some
– practice.'

Is it Aaron she wants her to practise with?
What if he's even suggested it? Fern is trapped
in an anguish of shame. 'What d'you mean?'

'I might be able to find some guys who are
as nervous as you are – guys who wouldn't
mind a bit of practice themselves.'

'You mean – Aaron?' Fern knows she is
doing the deer face again. She can feel her eyes
widening and rolling and she hates herself, but
she can't stop.

Alix studies her for another moment, and
then laughs. 'God no, not Aaron. Aaron
doesn't even . . .well, let's just say it's not his
scene. But I bet there are more guys like you
than you realise.'